Towards a universal declaration on internet rights and freedoms?

Abstract

This article, conceived as a mainly empirically based contribution, analyses a discursive context composed of 58 documents proclaiming Internet-related human rights drafted and launched by different actors between 1997 and 2015. The article hypothesises that a discourse on Internet-related human rights is being shaped, autonomous from the broader discourse on Internet governance. Therefore, differently from other scholarly works, it does not focus on the many initiatives aimed at defining principles for the governance of the Internet but only on those documents that specifically aim to proclaim Internet-related rights and freedoms. The article, first, analyses the findings of a software-enabled content analysis aimed at (1) identifying the key issues that dominate the discourse, (2) assessing the evolution of the discourse in the last two decades and (3) identifying the thematic priorities of different types of drafting entities. Second, it discusses possible research, policy and legal developments.